i don't think you need a clever analysis of this - bernie means what he says, here.
but, let's think about this. what would actually happen if you handed out a $50,000 check to every black person in the country?
i'm not going to complain about the debt; you can print the money. but, the immediate result of this is that you're going to produce an underclass of poor white people that are all of a sudden at a disadvantage in things like housing.
"but they have privilege."
riiiiight.
worse, you're going to send a substantial amount of money to people that actually don't need it at all, and that is money that could be spent on infrastructure, instead. if the result of the policy is functionally a large tax break, we're essentially talking about a race-based tax cut. that gives progressive taxation a new meaning.
listen - poverty might be correlated with race in the united states, and especially in the south, but racism and poverty are fundamentally not the same thing, and it is wrong to erase the identities of poor white people in the drive towards a poverty strategy. race is the absolute worst way to target a poverty strategy.
the media wants to hit him on this, is reporting it as a liability, is trying to expose it as a weakness...
the truth is that bernie is right, and that most people are going to agree with him.
if we are to be fully fair about this, the descendants of the enslaved irish (and, yes, the british enslaved the irish), as well as the descendants of indentured servants of german and other descent, ought to have some consideration, as well.
and, if everybody gets a check, why not just look at a ubi, instead?
https://truthout.org/articles/bernie-sanderss-personal-reboot-on-racial-justice-may-not-be-enough/